


The Lion in Winter

by salten35



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Badass Sansa, Non-Linear Narrative, Older Woman/Younger Man, Post Season 8, Sansa Stark is Queen in the North, The rest will be revealed in due time, Will time hop back and forth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-18 11:56:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21660448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salten35/pseuds/salten35
Summary: The last child of Cersei Lannister and her brother Jaime survived the wars between Houses Lannister, Targaryen, and Stark.Years after an uneasy truce on both sides of the Narrow Seas, the wheels of history begin churning anew.A hostage in the North, the boy whom many believe to be the rightful heir to the Iron Throne receives an unexpected proposal.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	1. The Present I

**Cellen - 319 AC**

"Oomphff!"

The boy with the golden hair fell harshly and painfully into the snow, shoulders bristling with pain against icy and brittle surface of the ground. Winter had come, and Winter had gone, and yet the North, the only home Cellen Lannister had ever known in his short life, still lay frozen within the embrace of the harshest season the Gods would ever seek to bestow upon their realms. In his mind, as he groaned in pain, Cellen tried imagining what south was like, the lands of his mother, and wondered whether the arrival of Spring had brought with it a warm summer's cheer, whether the morning mists lifted to reveal birds signing a happy song, above fields of flowers of every color and variety his mind could picture. Did his mother like flowers, Cellen wondered, did she pick them up, smell them, braid them in her hair?

"Get up, boy!"

Grunting, the young lion ignored the pain in his elbows and sides and sprung as quickly as he could back onto his feet. Above him, Ben Tully loomed haughtily, soft blue eyes leering cruelly down at him. Certainly Cellen knew the older boy felt little fondness for himself, much less his family name, though in that the Heir to Riverrun usually spent the days more coldly disdainful towards him, but little more than that. But today was something else, he'd sought him out to spar, he'd beaten him down again and again and again, showing no signs of relenting, no eagerness to end prematurely his torment.

"Aren't you tired? Or hungry, it's past supper time already."

Ben Tully huffed. "I didn't know the Kingslayer's son gave up so easily." Pointing his sparring sword at Cellen once more, the heir to Riverrun pivoted his hips, ready to strike again while the younger boy knew sureheartedly that he had less energy laying in his reserves to withstand his parries each time, that his arms were so exhausted, his body so wracked with pain, that a voice called out in his mind to give up, to lie down, to cover his head and chest and let the brute have his go at him until he'd sated all the cruelty in his heart for the day.

 _No,_ his mind protested. _I'm the son of a Queen. I'm the son of the man who was once known the greatest warrior in all Seven Kingdoms, when Seven were actually one. I'll die before I surrender._

A deep, harsh voice echoed through the small courtyard. "Enough!"

Ben looked crossly at the knight who'd admonished them, but even someone as arrogant as Edmure Tully's eldest son, and the Queen's own cousin, knew better to challenge or speak crossly in any way to the Commander of the Northern Queensguard.

"Tell your son to grow a pair next time he spars me," Ben spat at the legendary Ser Brienne of Tarth, feigning only the barest traces of courtesy before the young man exited the courtyard in open disgust.

"He's not my son," Brienne replied back sternly, though she made no other move at him.

Her hair greying, her frame and her shoulders not as broad as Cellen remembered when he was a child, they said that the Lady Commander of the Queen Sansa's Queensguard could still best any man or woman on any side of the Narrow Sea in single combat. He'd remembered her sparring with his father when they were children, and they all lived together, and happily so, the lady knight not quite his own mother, not quite Ser Jaime's wife...mother to his half-sister, was perhaps the only description he had of her.

Handing him a raven and bidding him follow with nary a word, Brienne did not look him in the eyes when she finally deigned to speak to him.

"Your father rides from White Harbor," she said as he read, "he'll be at Winterfell soon, maybe even tonight."

"Thank you for telling me, Ser Brienne." She didn't dislike him, Cellen didn't think. Nor did she like him either. It'd been she who'd initially been charged with raising him since Jaime left Winterfell for White Harbor, but the knight had enough on her hands, with her own daughter, and of course, her duties to the Queen. Of course he'd heard the rumors, a deaf man could've, and it was obviously no coincidence that the last time Brienne of Tarth had shown any motherly affection towards him had preceded the last time he'd seen his own mother, when he was but a child of six. "And thanks for getting him off my back."

"That wasn't my intention," Brienne replied with the same passive coldness she'd addressed him with for most of his conscious memory. "Believe me child, I was knocked down far worse than you by all the squires in Tarth when I was your age."

That was hard for him to imagine, Brienne of Tarth getting knocked onto the ground by teenage boys. "But you always got back up, didn't you?"

"Always." The lady knight's tone changed, stern, no longer reminiscing. "The Queen requests your presence."

"For what?" Even though they shared a castle, he rarely saw the Queen, Sansa I Stark of the North, except sometimes in passing. Considering she probably liked him even less than all the other inhabitants of Winterfell, he was surprised she'd ever bothered summoning him at all, except for the occasional formality required as a ward of the Queen.

 _Hostage_ , he reminded himself. _Hostage of the North, hostage in a land which despises me and my family name, hostage of their Queen, yet the same Queen being the only reason I haven't been mobbed and torn apart by all her loyal subjects by now._

She'd question him politely, as part of her duties as guardian to his ward, how his studies were progressing, whether he had any wants or needs in Winterfell, or how he felt about what little news of the rest of the realm reached his ears. Never not terrified in those moments, he always kept his responses minimal, even that particular week when the last Winter began, and it took weeks for the maesters to get him anything covered in leather.

"I'll leave it for the Queen to explain."

Despite the fact that it was Spring, the Great Hall of Winterfell felt colder than it had in some time. Perhaps it was the Queen's disdainful eyes, which glared at him with more intensity than usual, and immediately Cellen wondered whether his mother had done something rash. Surely he'd done nothing to incur the Queen's wrath himself, or Ser Brienne's. A dark thought appeared in his head, as Cellen reminded himself that he was growing slowly into a man, and less so a boy, and there would always be Northerners who hated him, who feared him, and who would now feel less guilty than before in spreading lies for the purposes of harming him, of killing for good the Lannister whom some in the realms would say was the rightful heir to all seven scattered kingdoms.

Despite their distance, he'd heard rumors of how the Queen and Ser Brienne had protected him all his life from those who would have wished to carry their plots of revenge against him. Out of honour? Perhaps, because unlike most of its wilder inhabitants, the Queen and Ser Brienne were imbued with a higher sense of honour and duty to protect their captives, however personally distasteful they were to them. But Cellen understood that out of all things, honorable, cold, or cruel, the Queen Sansa Stark was first and foremost a woman of practicality, and the simple fact of the matter was that the boy who may some day still become King Cellen I of House Lannister was much more valuable to the North and its Queen alive, rather than dead.

Unless his mother had finally crossed some unimaginable line.

"Your Grace," he knelt. The chambers were mostly empty, save for Queen and her closest counselors. The Lady Brienne took her customary place standing behind her Queen, next to Ser Podrick Payne and the younger Ned Manderly. The few northern lords Cellen recognized included Cley Cerwyn, said to be something of a northern Hand to his Queen by now, along with the Lady Meera Reed, the middle-aged Lord Brandell Dustin of Barrowton, and Ser Robar Royce from the Vale. He was also surprised to see the Queen's brother Bran, the one they called the Three-Eyed Raven, rarely seen outside his room or the Godswood, the latter a northern sept he'd never had reason to intrude upon, not that he would ever be allowed in the most sacred corner of the Queen's castle. Yet here he sat, next to his sister and Queen, eyeing him with an odd gaze of...curiosity, even?

"You summoned me," he dared ask. Was this to be his sentence, his execution? The Queen in the North was not known to be a particularly bloodthirsty one, but she was not known for her mercy either. Few dared cross her...no, Cellen corrected in his mind, few wished to cross her, loyal to her as all these Northerners were, but the foolish few who did always found their last pleas ruthlessly unanswered.

"Lord Qyburn has passed," the Queen pronounced, speaking of the old man who'd been his mother's Hand. "Queen Cersei has appointed Harry Strickland the new Lord of Harrenhal." She wore a dark dress and would look to be in mourning, Cellen thought, were it not for the grey furs adorning her. It would be a bad sign for his own survival, the boy mused, were it not for the fact that the Queen in the North would never deign to mourn someone like him.

The name had a passing familiarity to it, though Cellen could not place it immediately, not with the eyes of the entire Northern court pressed upon him.

"He was th' captain of yer mother's Golden Army," Lord Dustin saw fit to remind him angrily.

"Golden Company," Meera Reed corrected him.

"Former captain," Cellen raised, voice quivering. "The Golden Company doesn't exist anymore?" He knew his politics, somewhat. He had no idea what game his mother was playing, to name the former mercenary to the seat of the Lower Riverlands, except clearly the Northern courts would interpret any action undertaken from the Red Keep as preparations for what could be the next war.

"But many of their men still live," Cley Cerwyn countered. "Many who survived the war stayed on this side of the Narrow Sea, and nearly all of those who stayed count today as Harry Strickland's bannermen."

"Lord Qyburn," the Queen took over, perhaps already in the preludes to issuing his death sentence, continued to explain, "whatever his ills, was not a man who cared for the accumulation of his personal power or estate. He died lacking an heir, lacking much of any army to govern the Kingdom of the Godseye."

"As was the agreement between Queen Sansa and Queen Cersei," Meera added.

Cley Cerwyn continued. "We have already received word that Strickland's bannermen are marching with him north to Harrenhal. We believe this sudden rearming of the Lower Riverlands is a move to occupy the Crossroads of the northern kingdoms."

"At the least, such an action by Queen Cersei could be viewed as a threat to cut off the North from our trade routes." The way the Queen spoke, it sounded as if she was accusing Cellen himself of treason.

"At the worst," Robar Royce spoke, "it's a prelude to an attack on the Vale, or Moat Cailin, or Riverrun and the rest of the Upper Riverlands."

Was that why Ben Tully had been so cross at him earlier today, Cellen wondered. Did the older boy already know of his mother's actions in threatening his inheritance as Lord Paramount of Riverrun and the Kingdom of the Three Forks?

"Does this mean you'll have to kill me?" He could defend his mother's actions, make excuses for Cersei Lannister, or condemn her outright, but what did all the politics matter to him, except that it'll all mean either the end of him, or not?

"Your mother is certainly trying the patience of the Northern court," Robar said menacingly to him. His long brown beard, grown in the northern style despite his land of origin, nearly reached the table he sat at, and his dark bushy eyebrows threatened him with every frown worn in consternation.

Was that why his father was marching to Winterfell, Cellen suddenly remembered. And if that was so, that his fate had long been decided by the actions of two Queens in the past days, while he was sparring and riding unknowingly and in ignorance towards his own death sentence, was his father's arrival at Winterfell an act of mercy, to grant the two of them one last audience with each other? Or was it a rare show of cruelty from the Queen in the North, to force father to witness firsthand the death of his last son?

"My lords, Your Grace," Cellen said, "I knew nothing of my mother's actions, nor do I approve of them." He figured, the son of a Queen, he ought at least try and plead for his life, out of dignity for his house and his name. And truly, Cellen Lannister did not want to a hostage from his earliest waking memories, he'd certainly been better prepared for the idea than most highborn children...but why now, when he was so close now to finally beating that damned Glover boy in a duel, when he was just about to read of the Dance of Dragons in his studies...or when he'd finally gotten the beautiful, raven haired Alanna Hornwood to actually speak a few words to him that were not dripping with the typical northern disdain that was his usual due?

"We know that child, of course you have nothing to do with your mother's actions." The Queen's voice was unusually warm, and Cellen wondered whether he'd dare hope that he could at least receive a reprieve. Dying in the north, by the orders of its Queen, had always been an axe which lingered uneasily over his neck his entire life, but standing before the northern court, staring death in her beautiful pale blue eyes, Cellen Lannister suddenly realized just how much he wanted to live, another day, another year, another season, if he could be greedy. To get just a little better with his skills with the sword, to, by a miracle of the Gods, finally receive that elusive kiss from Alanna...to see his father again.

To even see his mother again, though that hope he knew to be both blasphemous and impossible.

"But to show weakness is to invite weakness," Robar Royce exclaimed, and Cellen glanced uneasily at the axe by his side, and knew too surely that the second son of Yohn Royce may be even more eager than young Ben Tully in having a go at his rather poorly defended neck.

"Your mother is testing us," Cley Cerwyn said, less eagerly, but still coldly. "Obviously we cannot take one appointment as an act of aggression or war, but...anything further, any move more aggressive..."

The old man's voice trailed off, what he seemed unwilling to say to Cellen's face all too obvious to everyone in the room. For the first time since his entrance, however, the Queen looked to Ser Brienne, and gave her a slight nod.

"Cellen Lannister," the lady knight asked sternly, "what say you of your own loyalties?"

"I'm loyal to the North, Ser Brienne, Your Grace." He said this without hesitation, because he knew this to be true, that however much he knew he was hated in Winterfell, in the North, that was how much he wanted to fight for them, to prove that he was not the villain the rest of his family was known as in all the lands. "I'll fight for the North," Cellen continued in growing earnestness, "I'll fight for my Queen, I'll fight for the only home I've ever known, I'll fight Lord Harry and his men, I'll fight my mother's armies, if you'll so allow me, if you'd give me the chance."

 _Yet would you fight your mother herself_ , the voice asked of him, _would you fight your father too, could you raise your sword to both their necks, were you even able of the task?_

They all stared at him, the Queen and her brother the most disconcertingly, Cellen thought.

"I believe you," the Queen finally pronounced, to his relief. And his dread. "But clearly I cannot let you fight, especially south of Moat Cailin. Were you to be captured, and held south, even against your will, you'll deprive the North of its assurances against your mother."

That was not the answer he'd expected, though the moment he heard them he understood the wisdom of the Queen's words, and cursed his own stupidity at not thinking through the true implications of his pledges. What if they thought him a traitor now, using very much the guise of loyalty as a plot for escape?

"So...if I'm not to die, and not to raise my sword against my mother...what am I to do?"

"You'll do your duty to the North," the Queen pronounced, gritting her teeth as she leaned back into her small, wooden throne. "As will I."

Cellen looked nervously around the Hall, at the wary eyes of all its occupants. His own eyes fixated upon the silver crown placed along the Queen's brow, mesmerizing himself against the features of the two carved wolves, so as to calm him, and so not to betray to all the lords and ladies his newfound confusion, along with his ever present apprehension.

"I'm sorry, Your Grace," he finally broke the silence, "but what's my duty to be?"

"To marry."

"Whom?"

"Your Queen."

Shifting his attention immediately downwards from her crown, Cellen saw that there was no levity to the Queen's eyes, this was no joke...and certain the Queen felt no eagerness towards the words she'd just said. Yet, she'd just grimly said them anyway. Turning to look about the room again, it was Robar Royce he first noticed, staring angrily at him, as if he were an object of the Vale lord's personal hatred. Did he want to marry the Queen himself, Cellen wondered.

"By the Gods, the Queen is still of child bearing age," Brienne explained further, her voice never wavering as she elaborated on her Queen's shocking pronouncements. "You'll give the Queen two heirs."

"One for the North," the Queen said emotionlessly, "and one for your mother's throne. Were war to occur, and your promises in wanting to fight your mother's armies still true afterwards, you may do so. The Queen would certainly wish for her husband and consort to return safely back to Winterfell. But if not, it would be in the North's interests to hold yet another heir to the Kingdoms of the Red Keep."

"And if the seven kingdoms are truly lucky," Meera Reed added, "perhaps it may be possible that the heirs to Winterfell and King's Landing could grow up not just as siblings, but as friends, so as to guarantee a peace which may last many generations." So she was a supporter of this plan, Cellen realized. A fierce warrior, he wondered whether she'd be skilled enough to protect him from all the lords and men in the North who would have wished to claim their Queen for themselves? And not just the North either.

"Doesn't the Vale and the Upper Riverlands still recognize Jon Snow of Houses Stark and Targaryen as the rightful Heir to the Iron Throne?"

"They do," this cold woman whom he'd somehow just become betrothed to answered him, "as do I. The problem is that Jon Snow does not even recognize himself as the rightful heir of anything, not the Northern throne, not the Iron Throne."

"And its been many, many years since he's set foot on this side of the Narrow Sea," Cley Cerwyn pointed out. He pulled out several small slips of parchment. "Both the Lords Edmure and Robin have agreed to recognizing any children the son of Cersei Lannister may have with the Queen in the North as their future King, or Queen."

"I...I accept," he managed to stammer out, before remembering his courtesies, "the...great blessing...that has been conferred me...by Her Grace..."

"You ought show more gratitude boy," Robar chided him coldly, "the Queen just granted you the hand in marriage of the most beautiful woman in all the realms..."

"I am most grateful," he protested, his eyes anxiously fixated on the Vale man's axe, "my Lord, Your Grace...this is an honour most high..."

"It's a lot for him to take in at once, I'm sure," the Queen said, her voice strangely warm again, though severely understating just exactly how he felt at the moment. "The ceremony will occur tomorrow night, by the Godswood, provided Ser Jaime arrives in time. Lord Cellen, you may be dismissed from the remainder of your lessons today. Return to your quarters, I'll have someone call for you when your father arrives."

Without another word, he nodded dumbly and groaned as he stumbled his way out of the Great Hall, though not failing to notice a knowing smirk upon the face of the Lady Meera Reed through the side of his eye.

"I'm going to marry the Queen," he heard himself saying to himself in the cold, empty corridors of Winterfell. "I'm not going to die, I'm going to have her children..."

Wait, that wasn't quite right, Cellen realized. "Well, not have her children myself," he corrected himself, frowning while he hesitated in thinking. "Help her have her children, that's more like it I suppose..."

 _More hostages for the North,_ he understood this. Yet his inherent excitement outweighed any concerns for any future children he may be lucky enough to conceive. Before this afternoon, he'd thought the greatest honour that could ever fall upon his shoulders was an appointment as one of Queen Sansa's Queensguard, so as to end with as much dignity as possible the line of his mother's family and inheritance. And now...and Robar Royce was right, ass as he was, the Queen was so beautiful, he'd known this all his life, just as he'd known of his station as her hostage all of his life.

A fonder thought returned, and a smile grew upon his face. "I can't wait to tell father."

With any luck, Jaime Lannister might even be happy for him. If he were, that would make him perhaps the only one, out of all the souls in the known world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, many of you are wondering WTF if you've made it through the first chapter. All will be explained in due time, and the narrative of this story will jump between past and present to show how we've arrived at this point in which the story begins.


	2. The Past I / The Present II

**Daenerys - 305 AC**

Rhaegal was dead. And rather than doing anything about it, seeking revenge and bringing fire and blood upon the bloody pirate who'd just murdered her son, the Queen of Dragons had instead decided to flee, from Euron Greyjoy, out of all people. She'd been this close, she saw the insanity bubbling inside the so-called pirate king's own eyes, while plunging Drogon downwards towards the Iron Fleet. But she could not risk dying, she could not risk the life of her last surviving child, so she fled, barely able to dodge and escape the flurry of bolts which came shooting at her afterwords.

_No. A dragon does not run. If I flee now, after what they've done to me, how will they see me, how can they ever respect me again?_

Taking a deep breath, the last of the Targaryens bid her last dragon to soar high into the sky, into the glare of the sun as her ancestor Aegon had done, before destroying the armies of the Westerlands and the Reach at the Fields of Fire. So high, so departed from the world, the castle and rocks and swirling ocean below, she could barely see the tiny dots of what would constitute the Iron Fleet, and could only pray that the same was true from their perspective. Then, with a determined scream, Daenerys plunged Drogon downwards.

The dragon screamed along with her, and though her heart was caught amidst of the heat of battle, Daenerys startled, because a dragon's scream would eliminate easily any aspect of surprise she could have hoped for.

"Dracarys," she yelled fervently, knowing it was now or never. Flames sliced through the cold ocean air long just as the waves of the Narrow Sea became distinguishable from each other again, and her enemy's ships looked to be the size of actual ships. The ocean itself boiled, the cracks of wood and steel exploding echoed through her ears, and she pivoted her dragon directly above the surface of the water as she bade him fly as fast as he could, to cut through the Iron Fleet and their king as fast as it was possible.

Despite the initial shock within the enemy fleet the flames wrought, the Queen saw ahead of her, ahead of the wreckage she'd already inflicted, sailors by the dozens stumbling back onto their feet, even as some of their ships were already wrecked, or half rubble. Many of them jumped into the water, only to scream as they burned, but others, seeing the example of their fellow men, scrambled instead to the Lannister usurper's weapons, and soon enough Daenerys was having to swing Drogon left and right to avoid now this second barrage of giant arrows, less intense than the first, but ever more dangerous due to the proximity to the enemy she'd chosen to place herself in.

One peek ahead, and there he was, Euron Greyjoy, who'd lied during the Council at the Dragonpit, who'd brought an army of mercenaries to her shores while she was busy sacrificing what little she had left in the war against the dead.

"Dracarys," the Queen ordered once more, knowing that if she could kill their leader, their king, the rest of the Ironborn would submit and beg for a mercy she was not prepared to give them, not after what they'd already done to her Rhaegal. Watching Drogon's nostrils rise in preparing his fire, the ears of Daenerys Stormborn heard to her horror instead a terrible screech, similar to the sound which had emanated from Rhaegal minutes earlier at the beginning of the ambush, except so much worse, so much louder. Then, a wave of blood rushed over her, the blood of her own child, staining her hair, her dress, blinding her even as she felt her mount plunge himself and his rider into the cold hell below.

_A dragon does not burn. But it can drown._

* * *

The rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, of the Andals and Rhoynar and First Men, felt the pull of rough hands dragging her onto a sandy shore. First she choked, as gulp after gulp of the briny water escaped her chest through her lips. Her vision blurred, burned by the salty quagmire which had threatened to engulf her entirely. And Daenerys Targaryen knew that were she anything but a dragon truest, she would have cooked alongside all the other Ironborn sailors when Drogon turned the waters of the Narrow Sea temporarily into a boiling cauldron.

 _Drogon!_ Where was he?

"Drogon? Drogon!"

It was only now that memories of that last battle came flashing back, piece after piece, into the Queen's memory. And only then that realization of her situation dawned upon her, that she did not know whether it was friend or foe who was dragging her ashore.

"We have not seen him since he fell."

It was Grey Worm. Thank the Gods, opening her eyes, Daenerys saw the darkened garb of her Unsullied surrounding her. They all looked worse for wear as she recalled the scene while she fled the first time, that of the steel arrows wreaking havoc on her own fleet, tearing through ship and men and women alike.

"Where are we," she asked, trying to stifle any sense of panic growing into her heart. Just how bad had this ambush been, just how much of her men had she lost?

"Dragonstone." The half man's answer came after a cough, and Daenerys saw her Hand sitting dejectedly upon a rock, wringing the water from his small boots.

"Tyrion! You survived!"

The dwarf shook his head. "Not sure if that's a good thing yet."

They both looked around their surroundings, where more and more Unsullied men were swimming their way to shore, staggering back onto their feet, trying to reestablish their bearings, their arms, their dignity.

"Lord Varys is here too," Grey Worm said, but his eyes showed no sense of relief.

"What's wrong, Torgo Nudho?"

He shook his head, return his gaze across the watery horizon.

"Missandei."

* * *

**Cellen - 319 AC**

She's never looked at him this way, he realized. The fact was, this was perhaps the first time Alanna had ever been the one to seek him out, approaching him in the small solar located in his wing of the castle, far distant from the chambers of the Queen, her family, and her few closest advisers. Next to the castellan and master-at-arms, his quarters lay positioned merely a few hallways from the servants' wing, whereas Alanna Hornwood, daughter of Lady Lyarra Hornwood, lady in waiting to the Queen herself, spent her nights by the Queens own chambers. They would soon be neighbors, Cellen supposed, except everything had changed between the two within the span of a few hours.

"Is it true, what they're saying?"

"The betrothal?"

Her light brown eyes seemed to dance in the shadow cast by the room's fire, and Cellen thought this was the first time he'd seen her smiling at him before. "You're going to marry the Queen? You?"

"What, do I not deserve her hand?" She was one of the few in the castle he could joke around with. Not that she laughed all that much at his jokes, but Cellen noticed the little smirks whenever she did occasionally appreciate what little he possessed for wits, or pretended to, at the very least. He'd always thought he could count her as a friend, because unlike most of the other children growing up with him in Winterfell, she was one of the few who never insulted him, or ignored him with open hatred, or beat at him until he'd finally learned how to fight back. She'd been among the first to display open pity for him, when they'd both been much younger, bringing him rhubarb tea after a particularly bad thrashing by Rickard Cerwyn.

"More than any other Lannister, I guess," Alanna replied, a hint of deliberate bashfulness hidden in her voice. "For a tyrant's son you're not bad, you don't have horns growing out of your head or anything. But...the Queen?"

"It's a political thing, I think...I don't think she likes me for my good looks, or gallantry on a horse, or by sword."

"Well, of course," Alanna said, rolling her eyes, "but still...," her soft, sweet voice hushed, "maybe you don't know how much distaste the Queen has for marriage, for the company of men outside of court...so I doubt she'd marry just anyone for the politics of it all." The girl paused. "But I guess you're not much of a man yet, are you? Perhaps that's why..."

"Hey," Cellen protested, "I'm a half a head taller than some of the fully grown men here, and I'll have you know, I was this close to getting the better of fucking Glover on the sparring field yesterday..."

"Didn't Tully wipe the floor with you earlier today?" Her words taunted him, but her tone was playful, as if she had to stifle a shy giggle after speaking.

"Ben Tully is four years older than me," he shot back. "He's practically a knight!"

 _And an_ _ass_ , Cellen swore to himself. _And he'll probably have your hand in marriage the moment he asks for it._

The beautiful girl before him drew back, biting her nails lightly as she swayed back and forth meanly, oh did she mean it on purpose to taunt him so? "You're making him sound quite the catch, Lannister."

"Good one, good joke, my lady, because House Tully is the trout, to catch a fish, ha ha," Cellen said, crossing his arms and puffing his chest as far out as he could, trying to remain unaffected by her sway. "But politics or not, obviously the Queen sees me as a better catch than Ben Tully."

Were that only to be the case, that the Queen could marry that rotten lordling instead.

"It's a shame," Alanna replied back, her voice suddenly softer, her eyes turned inscrutable. "The fair maidens of the North weep after reading the news of today."

Just what kind of games was the girl playing with him, Cellen wondered. He could only try his best to scoff indifferently in response.

"I hardly think so." Squinting his green eyes, he cocked his chin towards his friend, and dared himself to ask, against all his better judgments. "Will you?"

A graceful yet swift move, and her gentle hands were all of a sudden upon his face, caressing his cheeks, running her small fingers down by his mouth. "We don't have to weep. There's better things we can do together..."

"I'm betrothed to the Queen!" But Cellen did not withdraw from her, as he should have, because her touch, so long yearned for, so many nights spent dreaming of it, seemed to entrap him within a mystical trance. "It'd be treason," he mumbled.

"You're not married to her yet," Alanna said with a smirk, her light voice deeper, huskier than he'd ever heard. "We'll always have tonight. Besides, you don't have a maidenhead to betray any secrets tomorrow night."

He raised both his hands, and wrapped them gently around her slim wrist. Slowly, reluctantly, he pulled her hand downwards, and away from him. "We shouldn't. Her Grace is not just to be my wife, she's my Queen. I can't betray her in any way."

The girl's dark eyes turned unreadable again, even as a smile grew upon her lips. "Good."

Cellen frowned, if he'd thought he'd reached the limits of his consternation and...tenseness just before, he couldn't even imagine how to think or what to say now, when he'd expected, perhaps even hoped, to see disappointment reflected back at him.

"Was...was that a test...? For the Queen...of my worthiness?"

The smirk upon her face grew wider. "You'll never know, will you? And that will drive you crazy, I bet." Her delicate fingers reached for him again, grabbing his wrists this time in turn, and she ran her her fingers slowly through his. "You'll make a good consort, I think. For a southron, you're not that bad, when it comes to knowing your place, and your duty."

_What of my duty to my mother, to the Crown I may hold myself one day?_

"What's she like? The Queen?"

"What do you think?"

Cellen tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. Could he be honest with her? He never had to hesitate, when they were both much younger. Before she began to realize the politics of things. And before he began to realize just exactly how and why he felt about his old friend, how one day, the sight of her never failed to seize his heart...or the other parts of him.

"To be honest, I'm terrified of her. I'm afraid...if I don't please her, if she thinks I'd betray her...which I'd never do, she'll take my head. Or feed me to the hounds, like she did her last husband."

Alanna raised an eyebrow at him, before releasing his hand and turning to walk away.

"What?" Did he say something wrong? Something treasonous, even?

"She's not as bad you'd fear," Alanna replied, twirling and performing a dance in the narrow corridor even as she pirouetted further and further away from him with every step. "She puts up a stone face for the court, for her subjects, so they'll respect her. But when it's just you and her, she's very kind. She brings in the smallfolk from the town, the countryside, and dines with them, and gives them enough food to last a moon when they leave. She knows everything, she remembers everything about her subjects, those who serve her, those close to her. She treats us well, my mother and I, better than most ladies would, much less a Queen."

"You really admire her, don't you," Cellen realized.

"More than anyone in the world," came the lilting reply.

* * *

**Daenerys - 319 AC**

The ocean always had a calming effect on her. When she and Viserys were children, the kind knight who watched over them during their first years of exile in Braavos always took them to his own little secret island in the bay. Daenerys remembered how they'd run ahead of Ser Willem Darry up the hill and towards the edge of the cliffs where'd they spend the day watching the waves, imagining somewhere in the unseen distance the giant red castle forged by their long departed ancestors. Those had been the last happy memories she'd recalled as a child, before Ser Willem passed, and both she and her brother were thrown to all the carnivorous wolves of the world.

"A copper for your thoughts, my Queen?"

An older woman with a hunched back approach her balcony upon the Great Pyramid of Mereen, overlooking the city below and the bay further beyond. Daenerys Stormborn pulled out a small sliver of paper. Without averting her eyes to its contents, she read out the message carried in the scroll.

"Jon's arrived in Qarth a fortnight ago."

"And?"

The Queen turned her purple eyes towards the newest arrival to her court, yet also one of the original ones who'd stood by her that first doomed expedition when she'd sailed for west for the lands of her home, her ancestors.

"The rumours are true."

"The warlord from Yi Ti?"

Daenerys allowed herself a light smirk as she walked back inside the pyramid, past the curious eyes of Yara Greyjoy. "So-called Emperor, or so he calls himself."

"A rightful emperor, shall I guess," Yara remarked, one eyebrow raised sardonically, "betrayed and banished from his homeland by traitors and enemies?"

"With sixty thousand fighting men sworn to him."

"Sixty thousand." Yara whistled. "Should be enough to take Volantis."

"Once Volantis falls, so will Tyrosh and Lys. The last of the Three Daughters will finally become free cities in the truest sense of the word."

If there were any advantage to this second exile of hers, it was the opportunity she'd had in ensuring to the freedom of more slaves in this corner of the known world. Not that it had been easy, even just reestablishing her position in the Bay of Dragons at first. But then, when had anything been easy for Daenerys Stormborn?

Yara Greyjoy laughed. "Placing you within a stone's throw of the Stepstones."

Daenerys sighed. "If only the Dornish weren't so stubborn."

Yara shrugged. "They want their independence, after all. I don't blame them, they have it now. Hard to return from that."

The former Queen of Dragons eyed the tumble of giant scrolls lying in the corner of her chambers. Every day, she was tempted to open them, to lay her eyes upon the lines drawing the boundaries, the mountains, the rivers, seas, cities and castles of her homeland, her rightful realm. But there was no point just yet. Not when it was all so far away. But this, this news from the east...

"You promised Jon Snow, not to invade Westeros again." The Queen claimant of the Iron Islands frowned at her. Does she really disapprove, Daenerys wondered, _or is she testing me?_

"I did." She glanced away from the rougher hewn woman, looking back to the maps. "But promises have been broken before. Already."

"Like the promises he made, that the North would bend the knee to you?"

Daenerys nodded, her throat ebbing with unrequited rage. "Like the pledge of fealty made by the so called Queen in the North."

Except, that was the problem, wasn't it, that Sansa never made that pledge personally? Jon Snow had made that promise, on his cousin's behalf. Jon Snow had been wrong, and not for the first time.

"I wish I could take Winterfell for you, Your Grace, and give the Wolf Queen the just punishments she deserves. But my people, my lands...they have to come first."

"Your people will never escape the yoke of Cersei Lannister, so long as Sansa Stark vouches for her from the North." At times it was easy for her to forget her enemies, with so many pressing problems in the here and now, but Daenerys swore quietly, secretly sometimes, every night before she went to sleep, that she would one day repay those who betrayed her, time and time again.

"And what good would abandoning the Iron Islands again do," Yara protested. "I've made the mistake of attacking the North before. It's a rotten land, a rotten people...but it's a land that will swallow entire armies whole, large or small."

The Queen gave her vassal Queen a rueful smile, one which did not hide her rage, unlike the mask she'd often had to wear before Jon Snow. "That's what the tyrants of the world do, isn't it? Swallow people like us whole. We're lucky to have escaped." She raised an eyebrow at Yara. "You're lucky to have escaped Cersei, this time."

The Ironborn woman sighed. "I'd be a fool to go west and try again."

"But you will," Daenerys said, staring into the woman's steely eyes, who relented only for her.

"Aye, I probably will."

"Because it's what's right," Daenerys insisted, with growing indignity. Her fire could be quelled for small periods of time, but not forever. "They won, those two traitor queens. But not forever. Because sooner or later, the good people win, and the bad people lose."

Yara Greyjoy chuckled, popping her body down upon the Queen's plush bed. She was persistent, Daenerys had to give her that. But as she neared closer and closer her fortieth year in the cruel world, a widow with memories of four dead children fading further and further into a distant past life, the Queen cared less and less for bedmates of any kind, much less the Queen of the Krakens.

"Sixty thousand fighting men from Yi Ti," the Iron Born woman mused. "Hope you'll have some left for me once you're done with the Seven Kingdoms...or, I forget...however many dozen there are now."

"For now," Daenerys swore. But not forever. Because water always found its level, because what was rightful always became what was real, no matter how long it took.


	3. The Past II / The Present III

**Cersei - 305 AC**

King's Landing was a pit of vipers, the Queen of the Andals and all that did not need anyone to lecture her of the fact, she'd known it before she'd ever set foot in the city, a child still waiting to be disillusioned of the last ideals from the naive songs she clung to, that of gallant princes, and gallanter kings who'd just overthrown said princes. Loyalty could be bought, to an extent. Loyalty could be stamped by force into the foreheads of the stubborn lords, it can be earned through blades and blood and yes, fire. But loyalty given, well that was a rarity indeed, and were Cersei Lannister a godly woman, she would thank the seven for giving her the one man in the world who would be loyal to her and her alone, who sought nothing for himself, in terms of honors, or powers, at least.

"Do you think it's a boy, or a girl?"

Qyburn shook his head. "I'm afraid that's one area of knowledge I'm unable to ascertain."

Of course she knew what earned her Hand his loyalty to her, the poor fates of the serving girls and the occasional unfortunate traitor's lady who met their ends by his...experimentations in the dungeons. Sometimes Cersei did think of them, of what could have been, had she been born to a lower family, or house, or station. But that was the difference, wasn't it? She wasn't lowborn, she wasn't a nobody, she was the daughter of Tywin Lannister, the most feared lion of the west. And if the gods were real, then surely it was their will, that she was Cersei Lannister, Queen Regnant of the Andals and Rhoynar and First Men and all Seven Kingdoms...not some nobody who could find themselves forgotten by the gods, slipping into the darker cracks of the Red Keep.

"What would you wish for, Your Grace?"

Cersei took her time contemplating the question. Part of her wanted a boy, because of the two sons she'd lost. She'd like another son, to remind her of Joffrey, and Tommen.

_And Jaime._

"A girl. A daughter."

So she could leave her true legacy behind, another Queen to follow her on the Iron Throne, to spite all the brutes and drunkards and dullard lords who had looked their noses down at her all her life, just because of the parts she'd been born with...no, Cersei of House Lannister, First of Her Name, wanted a daughter to teach, to mold, to make to become a better version of herself...smarter, stronger...crueler and more ruthless, so that by the end of her reign and hers, none in the seven kingdoms dared look their noses down upon a lord's daughter ever again.

"So the Dragon Queen lives."

"We believe so," Qyburn replied. Her Small Council was the smallest in the recorded history of Westeros, another way her reign made its mark upon the history of the realms. "But the last of her dragons are dead."

"And yet she's still foolish enough to move on King's Landing."

Qyburn paused in his pacing, his feet stopped upon somewhere along the western coast of Essos.

"Her ambition...or rather obsession...with the throne of her father's is not to be underestimated." Glancing down at his feet, the old man remembered another piece of counsel. Or had he strategically withheld it until now? "Euron Greyjoy survives. He says he brings with him spoils of war."

"Spoils," Cersei sneered. "Did you not tell me his fleet was destroyed?" She did not leave room for her Hand to answer, so as to convey just how little she thought of the pirate, now that he'd served his purpose. If fact, Cersei wished Euron died along with the dragons, so that she did not have to bother with the pretense of having to reward him complicating with the matter of how exactly to get rid of him. "It's no matter, with her dragons dead, we have less need for ships than we did before."

"The war isn't won yet, but the advantage is on our side."

Qyburn's words said nothing, which meant he was awaiting her lead, her instruction, as a Hand should defer to his Queen.

"Send Strickland's armies north."

"North, Your Grace?" Her Hand did not expect this. Was he duller what she would have guessed?

"North," the Queen repeated more crossly than before. "Our own armies will be enough to withstand any siege, now that the Dragon bitch has lost her dragons, our scorpions will destroy her Dothraki and Unsullied before they're within even a hundred paces of our walls."

"Very wise, Your Grace," Qyburn said, quickly following, or so she hoped. "You mean to turn the Golden Company against Jon Snow then?"

The Queen allowed herself a small smile at her hand, a sign of approval that he'd caught on so quickly. "We hit them now, while they're split and still marching, while they're confused, while they're awaiting instruction, whether to retreat or reinforce their Queen on Dragonstone, or to attack King's Landing directly. With any luck we catch them crossing the Trident and destroy them entirely."

"I'll see to it at once, Your Grace."

Were the Gods wise enough to have born her in a man's body, Cersei knew she could have been as great a commander of men as her own brother, or Stannis or even that welp wolf of the north, Robb Stark. But it wasn't too late, it was never too late, Cersei Lannister knew of that better than most.

* * *

**Cellen - 319 AC**

A gentle knock on his door stirred Cellen of House Lannister from whatever dreams wafting through his mind the morning of his wedding day. Eyes fluttered open and shut and open again, until he recognized the familiar face of the man they still called the Kingslayer standing at his door, gazing fondly upon his son.

"Father!" Still yawning, he ran and hugged his father, his steel armor still cold from the ride. "How was the trip," the boy asked muffled upon his father's shoulder.

"Cold. Muddy. Rotten. About what I suspect, of any trip taken in the North."

If he could imagine his father speaking in his mind, he would see him rolling his eyes with his son enveloped in his arms.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," he said, pulling away, examining his father's face, reconciling it with what Cellen remembered of it last he saw of him, more than fourteen moons before. "Did you know?"

There were more wrinkles under his eyes, Cellen thought. His sallow beard, still tinged golden despite his age, was shorter than before, now that spring had come.

"About your marriage?"

"To the Queen!" He let his excitement betray itself, petrified as he was still at this insane idea.

Jaime Lannister shook his head. "Not when they summoned me, but I learned of it a day's ride out from Winterfell. I'm glad she saw fit to have me here." He looked away strangely, as he always did, when they were together in Winterfell. "How's your sister?"

"Growing. Beautiful. Smarter than me already, I think. I haven't seen her for a few moons now, not since the maesters declared winter over. But I imagine she'll make it here from Castle Cerwyn before the ceremony begins tonight." Cellen paused, seeing the uneasiness grow in his father's eye. "I'm sure she misses you, she tells me so in her letters. Does she write you often?"

Of course he would prefer his half sister by his side in Winterfell. But her mother did not, that was the problem. Did Brienne see too much of her father in Tyrra? Or could the Queen herself only tolerate no more than one Lannister dwelling within the walls of her home?

"She does," Jaime said fondly, patting him on the side of his arm, the sensation equal to the best of the heavens for Cellen. Every time he saw his father, every time he met his sister, he wished and prayed to the Gods, northern and southern alike, that they could all live together as one family, Brienne too. It did not escape his notice the one absence in that pretty picture in his mind.

Yet there was that sadness in his father's eyes, not just whenever they spoke of his sister, but also whenever he himself stood before him. Cellen thought of his siblings, two Kings, two boys who'd owned the Iron Throne as theirs, yet long departed before he was ever born. There had been another sister, by the same mother, the Princess he'd been named after. He knew little of her, except that she was kind, and she was beautiful, and entirely in love with her gallant Dornish Prince. He also knew that she'd died, a casualty of his mother's countless wars...and that his father had been by her side when it'd happened.

"Do you know what you're doing, marrying the Queen?"

"I do," Cellen responded emphatically at first. "I'm mean, of course it terrifies me. She's so much older, and..."

"Do you love her?"

This was an odd question, coming from his father, who never spoke of love.

"I...I don't know her. I love her as my Queen, I suppose." Cellen hesitated. In the panic between his mother's treason, and fears for his own life, he'd been so relieved for the reprieve that he hadn't even had the chance to contemplate just how he himself felt about binding his life, his fate, to that of the Queen in the North. "I don't think she loves me either, clearly...love has nothing to do with the marriage..."

"No, it doesn't." There was a glum melancholy in his father's voice as he talked.

"I want to love her," Cellen emphasized. "I think I can, she's beautiful, after all, and her people love her..."

 _She's beautiful now,_ a voice reminded him. _She'll be old long before you._

"You're in the game," Jaime interrupted. Cellen paused, almost chastened despite the tenderness in his father's voice, because his father never interrupted his children. When he didn't speak, he continued. "This game of thrones, of kings and queens, lords and traitors. I've played it. I had no choice, it was laid before me, my duty, to my family, my father, my sister and Queen."

"You didn't like it?"

"No," his father replied, with sheer revulsion in his eye. "There's nothing to like about it. You see the Queen in the North here. Does she seem happy with her throne? I remember Cersei, before the battle with the dead." A long pause, yet Cellen knew better than to interrupt his father. "I swear, she seemed more miserable in that chair than she was before, if that's possible at all. I doubt anything's changed for her since. Yet, they're the lucky ones, they won their games, they won their wars, they have their crowns."

It was a history he hated to confront, that he tried to avoid his entire life...thoughts of his mother, not the beautiful, stern woman he remembered from his childhood, but as the bloodthirsty tyrant and...butcher everyone claimed her to be, even his own father. There was a reason his name was hated in not just the North, but the Riverlands, the Vale, Dorne...as well as lands sworn to his mother such as the Reach and the Stormlands...if what the northerners told him was to be believed.

"You didn't win, did you, father?"

"No, I certainly didn't." His reply had an air of impetuousness to it, a rarity accompanying the admission of loss.

"Yet you're still here. You're alive, you're here for me, for Tyrra."

"You're right," Jaime Lannister conceded. "Guess I'm one of the few lucky ones."

"Good. I don't care about thrones, I don't care about winning their games. I don't even want to play the damned game. I just want to serve my Queen, do my duty as her husband, give her heirs."

"It's not your choice." Another interruption from father, in the span of minutes. "It's never been your choice, not since the day you were born, last surviving son of a queen."

Jaw dropped, having never heard his father so serious before in his life, Cellen shrugged sullenly. "What should I do then?"

Again, Jaime Lannister patted his son on the shoulder. "You have the right instincts, Cellen. Stay away from it all, stay in Winterfell. Believe you me, Queen Sansa wants you as far away from your mother's games as possible."

"Yet she wants me to sire mother's heir."

Jaime nodded contemplatively, and Cellen wondered he'd just learned of this now. "She'll play you," he acknowledged finally, "of course she will. But better her than most everyone else."

"Including mother?"

Another long pause.

"Especially Cersei."

* * *

_You're not good enough for her._

All the north screamed those words with their eyes throughout the entire wedding feast, without saying a word.

_You're a traitor's son, born of incest, born of a brother-fucker, your name's the scourge of the north, and all seven kingdoms._

And to be fair to all who hated him, all that was true, Cellen wouldn't be the first to admit it, he'd do it grudgingly, but it was the truth all the same. Yet, the Queen had made her choice, despite all of that, Queen Sansa I of House Stark had decided that a son of a Lannister tyrant and brother-fucker was good enough for her hand, politics or not. Hells, she'd allowed his father safe haven in the north for longer than he'd been alive, hadn't she? So who were these bearded wildmen, temperaments barely better than the wildlings they so despised, to question their Queen's wisdom?

"Your Grace. ...Lannister."

Old Wyman Manderly, who'd not left White Harbor for nearly ten years, yet rode north beside his father for the wedding of his Queen, to greet and give his blessings the hated southron scum of all their enemies. The old lord did not look him in the eye as he presented his tribute to his Queen, a necklace made of the clearest Braavosi pearls Cellen had ever seen in his young life. He looks towards his new wife, and smiled.

"They're beautiful, Your Grace, they'll look beautiful when worn by you."

She did not look him back in the eyes, Her Grace did not return his smile. Instead she addressed only her fellow northman, as if her husband did not exist, as if she'd wedded air, or a ghost.

"My sincerest thanks, Lord Wyman. You have served me and my House loyally for so many years..."

The ceremony itself had been most unique, according to the northern customs. It'd been the first Cellen had witnessed himself, so of course it lay to others to tell him of its oddness, such as his friend Mychal Mormont, who sat in the back of the Great Hall, eyeing his friend proudly from many rows away. Because there had been no one, and there could of course be no one, to give a Queen away, so he had walked alone to the Godswood as well, despite his father's arrival and presence. And he'd been the one to walk, to the Queen who awaited him below the Godswood, as if he the blushing maiden, and she the old, bearded lord. Which was not entirely inaccurate, save the beard.

Of course, none of this had been Cellen's decision, they'd told him as little as possible, all up until the last possible minute, and he'd merely obeyed instructions as well he could through all of it.

Well, at least the wine was good. Taking his goblet to indulge in a further sip, he felt a touch at his wrist. It was the Queen's own fingers, the first time she'd deigned to touch him since they held hands and brushed lips before the sacred tree of the North. Her fingers were cold, and her eyes, icier still, admonished him silently, so he set his cup down, chastened, though he knew not why. A pointed cough by his Queen, his wife, and Ser Brienne stood first, looking expectantly at Sansa.

"Your Grace, you are tired?"

"Thank you Ser Brienne, we shall retire to my chambers."

Cellen rose as well, and was about to take a step following the Queen before he noticed Brienne's chiding expression. The knight's eyes shifted downwards, and Cellen saw the extended hand of the Queen, which he took perfunctorily, and let her lead him through the Great Hall.

"My lords, my ladies, my fellow people of the North," the Queen spoke, his own fingers barely sitting within her grasp, as if he were a wight. Or horse turd. "I thank you for your attendance. I know many of you have long awaited this day, not for my sake, but for the sake of the North, and our continued independence and freedom from all who would seek to claim us south of Moat Cailin, south of the Trident. I know it's the duty for the Queen to wed, to give birth to heirs, so that our proud traditions may continue onwards. I apologize that, as Queen, I've been remiss in my duties until now. I hope you all understand why I've waited...and I hope this union...my final union...will be the one which will secure the peace and happiness of all our peoples, our domains, our children and their children to come."

The young lord, or was it prince, probably not, was cognizant enough of the moment to recognize the end of the Queen's speech, and follow her lead through the exit from the Great Hall of Winterfell. Looking back at the crowd, he craned his head to see his father, sitting by Tyrra several rows back from the front, and thanked the Queen's grace that she had not relegated them to the rear of the room. And Alanna, who did sit directly opposite them beside her mother, whom Cellen swore snuck in one last wink at him before all the northern court, and its Vale and Riverlands brethren, disappeared from his view.

His anticipation rising for what was to come, his breathing shorter and more irregular by the step, he accompanied his escorts in silence through the castle to the Queen's chambers. Brienne and the Queen, they seemed very good at silence, comfortable in it. As for Cellen, silence was a respite, a relief for him, because what could any alternative be?

Yet, despite all the mummer's farce of it all, the Queen had kept his hand in hers throughout, until they entered her dimly lit chambers. Letting go of his hand, the Queen disappeared into her privy, and Cellen allowed himself through his trepidation to study the room. First he saw a fire at its hearth warming the vast and empty chamber, the source of the warmth in this still cold night, because the North in its stubbornness could very well choose to remain frozen through the night well into the early summer. To the far corner he saw a small cot, and wondered if it had been prepared for her servants, or perhaps their future child, Queen Sansa was certainly known for her thoroughness and preparedness.

Various portraits, he saw, fruits of the Pentoshi painters the Queen had brought to Winterfell. Cellen recognized her parents, the Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, the Lady Catelyn Tully of Riverrun. Younger faces, he presumed one of them to be Robb Stark, the Young Wolf who, like most in her family, had died because of the evil conspiracies of his forebearers. There was Jon Snow too, the Queen's estranged cousin, though Cellen could not tell which was which, between Robb and Jon, because they both looked alike and to be the same age illustrated by the painter's hues. A younger boy, whom Cellen guessed was Rickon, the Queen's youngest brother, who'd died during the battle against the extinct house from what used to be the dreadfort. Another portrait, whom some would have guessed to be a man, but Cellen, as one who'd been born and raised in the north, knew better to be the Queen's only sister, the Hero of Winterfell, who'd saved all of humanity from the dead.

Never had he felt so unworthy, below the penetrating eyes of all the northern heroes and martyrs, so many of them dead because of his family, and those who bore his house name. Light footsteps echoed against the few parts of the walls that were barren, adorned with plain stone rather than the memories of the dead and unpresent, and Cellen watched the Queen return to her bedchambers, her pretty wedding dress a figment of the past now, clad in only a light, cream colored gown, which yet revealed nothing of her to him. He imagined her eyes as nervous as his for a moment, before he saw the Queen again, as regal and confident and cold as he'd always known her.

"Your Grace..." To be honest, Cellen had no idea what to say at this moment, where he was expected to be a man, except he was not a man, and certainly the Queen in the North knew that better than most. Yet it was his duty now to please her, to protect her, to be a husband to her...a woman who had not needed a husband to rule comfortably and securely the North for nearly the entire span of his own lifetime.

"Take off your clothes." It was an order, spoken with as much sentimentality as a Queen ordering her vassals to gather grain for the storage, or to fortify some half abandoned castle on the Wall. And because it was given as such, Cellen obeyed, his fingers stumbling through each button, each knot, until he'd disrobed of all his shirts. Then it came to his pants. He dared look at his Queen, his wife, but she seemed the same statue as before, except even colder, somehow, so he quickly averted his eyes back to himself, and pretended that it was him and he alone, disrobing for a bath. Yet, each layer seemed to catch, each knot seemed an impossible puzzle, until by the time he'd obeyed his Queen's orders to the full, he felt as dumb as a child, unable to comprehend his maester's impossibly frustrated ministrations.

And only then did he feel just how naked, how wholly revealed he was before her. He looked down, at his legs, at the pathetic little thing between them, yet just even the thought of his own nakedness, his vulnerability, excited him, not to mention what was to come mere seconds from now. Daring to raise his head, to meet his eyes with his wife's once more, he met yet again blue ice.

"Lie down," she ordered.

So he did, backing up onto her bed, their bed, until he nearly fell upon it. Only then did the Queen move forward, approaching him with all the trepidation of a knight entering battle. Without a further word, her gown still clad upon her shoulders, she stepped upon the bed, and crawled atop of him. Her hands reached him first, her fingers less frigid than before, but seemingly made out of steel as they gripped upon his upper arms, just below his shoulders. Then, as if they were opposing blocks of ice, he felt the touch of what he presumed to be her legs as she moved methodically over him. One hand left his arm, and took him, grabbed at him, for a brief second, and immediately she was lowered upon him. He gasped, foolishly, stupidly, he later ruminated. He thought he heard a lighter gasp emanate from her mouth as well, though Cellen figured that was more likely to be his imagination. Both her hands holding him down once again, the edges of her long gown now covering his entire body, from below his knees to up near his neck, his armed pinned against the bed so that the Queen could keep herself upright, she raised and lowered and rocked her body against him, through him, as Cellen slowly tried comprehending what was happening now between husband and wife.

Yet, as wrong as it all seemed, the Queen fully clothed, her garments nearly covering all of him, engaging in the consummation of their marriage with nary a word spoken by either, it all felt so good, so warm, so perfect. With each thrust of her hips downwards against him, he could feel the hair between her legs tickling him, stabbing him against his abdomen, his most sensitive and secret parts. Unable to help himself, he gasped, and saw his chest lurch into the air, and then it was as if the gods, old and new, northern and southron alike, had lifted him all the way up to all the heavens, all at once. Instinctively, he must have tried to raise his arms, to hold his wife, to take her, to claim her, yet her strong arms still held him down, and it was her restraint that brought him back down to land, to Winterfell, back to the Queen's bed.

Gasping, out of breath, suddenly aware of himself and just what odd noises had emanated from his throat mere seconds before, his eyes met the Queen's again. They were unchanged, though he imagined some sense of amusement in her eyes, while she continued to rock her body back and forth against him, until he felt the complete waning of himself, his body, his soul entirely drained. Within the span of a minute, or less, Cellen realized to his horror, as his sensibilities replaced his senses.

He felt her leave him, eject him, reject him, and soon not even the garments of her nightgown touched him.

"You may go."

"Your Grace?"

The Queen pointed to the small bed in the corner of the room. "All seven kingdoms must know that the Queen and Cersei Lannister's son share the same chambers. So we will oblige them, you'll sleep there."

Still hyperventilating, his body still pulsating through the last throes of what Cellen was coming to realize had been the most perfect sensation of his life, he rose from the Queen's bed, knowing that somehow he'd let her down, that he'd disappointed her in some way. He wanted to apologize, protest, he wanted to stay with her, feel her touch again, what having barely felt it during the brief consummation, but he obeyed his Queen's orders and walked sullenly and shamefully to the small bed opposite the room from her. Throwing the thick wolf's fur blanket over his himself, he felt his body curl up against itself, his mind still racing with confusion, elation, and shame all at once. Daring to lift his head above his blanket, Cellen turned his head to look back to the Queen, his wife. To his consternation, she lay in a similar posture, back turned against him, her knees curled up towards her chin. She seemingly hadn't moved since ordering him away from her bed, lying so still as if the brief act had exhausted her more than any day in her court.

Cellen felt compelled to speak. "I'm sorry, Your Grace?"

"It's fine," came the cold, emotionless reply. "Go to sleep."


	4. The Past III / The Present IV

**Sansa - 305 AC**

The Lady of Winterfell stood over the battlements surveying an empty and depleted north. Tyrion had tried convincing her that she was the power here now, with Jon accompanying Daenerys south, but the lovely couple had taken with them all the fighting men she had, hadn't they?. Including the Knights of the Vale, who'd ridden and saved them in the battle before Winterfell for her sake, not Jon, yet he'd happily handed them to Daenerys too.

Tyrion was wrong, it wasn't power Sansa cared about, not in the typical sense, she'd been happy for the Vale to answer to Jon, their King in the North, after he'd been crowned. But what use was power in the hands of a man too generous, too honourable...too easily succumbed to the heart? Much as Sansa loved her brother, could she ever trust him again with power, even as she would seat him on the Iron Throne over his proclaimed Queen?

"Three dragons dead," Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell, Sansa the survivor, whispered to herself. So it would seem she may survive whatever wars to come, because what was a Dragon Queen, without dragons? Yet, she worried even more, because Cersei Lannister was no less palatable than Daenerys, now that she'd been stripped naked of her otherworldly powers. With the odds even more distressingly even, or more accurately, the odds favoring Cersei now, just how did that bode for Jon, who would be leading the brunt of Daenerys's mad offensive against King's Landing, reason and prudence be damned.

Standing in her own home, she felt barren, naked, exposed to all the world, her title rendered meaningless by Daenerys and the brother who'd followed her. They'd stripped Winterfell of nearly all its protection, hardened soldiers who'd survived the Long Night, and the battles before. What if Cersei had reserves unknown to all of them, what if they attacked the North, while most of her bannermen were marching south. Winterfell could be held, with fighting men, with walls whole, rather than tattered and half standing as a result of the battle against the dead. She made a reminder in her mind to seek out Bran, ask that he keep an eye on events west, so as to give her due warning of any move Cersei may make against her, even though she knew that the warning would pose little help for her exposed and naked castle.

"Lady Sansa?"

The Lady of Winterfell turned to face her maester, who'd served the Boltons before her.

"We need ravens sent to Howland Reed and his daughter Meera. The Crannogmen must be summoned, and made ready to defend Moat Cailin. Or retreat to defend any possible attack from Barrowton, should the need arise."

"At once, my lady," Maester Wolkan said obediently. "From the Lannister armies?"

"Yes. The Lannisters are the greatest threat."

Sansa wondered whether the old maester was savvy enough to have glimpsed that they were not the only threat.

"Send ravens to all the houses of the north, major and minor." Then, another idea formed in her mind, that there were more who both hated the Lannisters, yet had no love nor fealty towards Daenerys. "Ravens to Riverrun also, to my uncle Edmure. Ask him to gather all the lords of the Riverlands, to be ready to march...not for the North, but to remind them the crimes the Lannister armies have committed in their lands. To remind them that a Lannister still sits upon the Iron Throne, for now."

She'd never met her uncle, she'd heard word that he was a fool, who'd cost her brother many a battle during the War of Five Kings. Yet, he was family, and he'd been sworn to Robb, so Sansa could only hope that the Red Wedding and all the years in captivity since hadn't entirely ruined the man's mind, or his will to fight.

Maybe if he knew of another with a claim to the Iron Throne, he would not be so eager to bend the knee to either Queen in the south...

* * *

**Cellen - 319 AC**

Life as the husband to the Queen did not change significantly for Cellen Lannister in the first days after his wedding night. No one called him a prince, so he supposed he was still a lordling, without lands or a castle, and a hostage at that. His lessons with the maesters continued, same as before, old Wolkan showing him no expressions of deference, seemingly not at all interested in the fact that he was now the Queen's consort, if only and solely due to the ill mischiefs of his mother. Two days before, Brienne reviewed his progress with the maesters, as she always did twice a fortnight, the lady knight just as stern and unyielding as always.

The master at arms was impressed though, when he finally knocked down Roby Glover, a year older than him, though they stood at similar heights, in a fit of blows Cellen did not even remember afterwards, tasting only the sweet taste of victory in his mouth.

"Queen's got ye worked up, eh," Craigan Marsh, the old grizzled swordsman who'd survived many a battle north and south, remarked to him amusedly. He'd yelled at him less since the wedding, so Cellen could count at least one change in attitude since becoming the Queen's lowly consort.

The young man did not respond to the master-at-arm's comments, though surely he heard the curiosity behind his voice. What was he supposed to say, tell him the truth, that the Queen did not touch him for days after their wedding night? Or that afterwards, presumably because she hadn't yet fallen pregnant, they'd resumed their relations, same as before, the Queen fully clothed, holding him down and performing her duty to the North until he'd fulfilled his, then the usual banishment to his side of the room, while she herself disappeared into her privy for what seemed an eternity, so that sometimes he fell asleep alone in the empty room? Certainly Cellen wasn't going to brag of his prowess and spread lies that he was pleasing his Queen, that she screamed in ecstasy at his touch, because surely such slander would reach her ears quicker than a raven could spread its wings.

After a few times he managed to not burst within the span of a few seconds, yet his wife did not seem all that pleased by his progress, so to speak, in her bed. Cellen sensed in her eyes an impatience, for him to get it over with, so he could leave her be. Yet, used as he felt afterwards, dirty as he felt being so...unwanted by his wife, Cellen could not help but enjoy their nocturnal sessions, to look forward to them despite knowing exactly what to expect, and to try and milk them out as long as he could those heavenly sensations, tantalizing brief, and limited, as they were. He'd almost burst into laughter the past night, thinking that actually enjoying himself was a small way, perhaps the only way, he could defy his Queen and wife. Yet afterwards, lying in his own bed, not an uncomfortable bed by any means, he couldn't help but feel sadness, to be continually rejected by the Queen, and at the same time, a growing longing with every night, so close was he to this formidable force of a woman, so beautiful, so untouchable, except by himself. And yet she seemed so far away from him, even lying in the same room, or mounted on top of him.

"What's it like," his friend Mychal had eagerly asked, days afterwards, "being with her? The Queen?"

He noticed Alanna eating her meal only a few tables away, surely within earshot of whatever he'd deem fit to tell his friend, the young heir to Bear Island.

"I don't think the Queen would like me spreading gossip about her," Cellen had answered uneasily. "I'm her subject first, husband second."

Mychal raised a skeptical eyebrow. "The north is lucky to have such a loyal consort."

He suspected something, surely, because he and Cellen had never held anything back from each other before, Mychal being one of the few true friends he had in the castle. With most of the properly recognized members of House Mormont extinct after the Long Night, like other houses such as the Umbers and Karstarks, the Queen had had to search near and far for distant cousins to proclaim the new lords, or ladies, of the North. Mychal's father, a younger grandson of a younger sister of a Mormont lord, had been a merchant sailing the rounds between Gulltown, Braavos, and Pentos when his summons arrived, so father and son came north, the latter just as much of an outsider as the son of Cersei Lannister in Winterfell. There'd been closer relations, he'd heard, but they'd resided in Oldtown, so it had been out of the question for the Queen to name one of his mother's subjects to guardianship over any northern domains.

"She deserves only the best," Cellen asserted back.

"And you're the best," Mychal japed, his dark brown hair grown so long as to hang over his eyes as he shoveled their lunch of meat pudding into his mouth.

"I am the son of a Queen." _Some would say the most powerful Queen in the land_ , Cellen thought in his mind, though he did not dare speak the words, _though far from the best or most just, certainly_. "Not that that matters at all, obviously. Of course Her Grace could've found a better match than me. But what's settled is settled, I serve her, gods be good, I'll give her as many children as she desires. I'll fight for her, I'll die for her, whatever Her Grace asks of me..."

A bright, feminine voice interrupted him from nearby. "Is it customary in the south to for husbands to call their wives 'Her Grace?'"

"Hush, Alanna," Cellen replied, determined not to let her get the better of him, "if anything I've made history, the first husband to a Queen Regnant in all the records of all the kingdoms."

"Superb job of it you're doing, husbanding," Alanna remarked, feigning contempt towards her friend, "you still haven't managed an heir for Her Grace."

 _Maybe she's the one who's barren,_ he thought again, but dared not say.

"They say the Queen bends you over and strikes you on yer ass two dozen times before she deems you ready to mount," Mychal japed, his mouth full and his cheeks red with embarrassment even while he dared taunt his friend. Rather than reward Mychal with any attention for his comment, Cellen looked instead towards Alanna, who rather than appear horrified by the comment, only decided to direct a conspiratorial wink at him while she took a spoonful of her soup.

 _I wouldn't half mind that,_ Cellen thought sardonically, _that'd be thrice more than how much, or little, rather, she deigns to touch me now._

"As the Queen's husband, I will not tolerate such slurs against Her Grace." His tone wasn't entirely serious, but he beseeched his friends with his eyes, begging Mychal silently to let the matter go, especially in the presence of others. "What happens in the Queen's chambers is entirely the Queen's prerogative..."

And to be fair to his Queen, outside her bedroom, _their bedroom_ , Cellen reminded himself, Sansa treated him with all courtesy and politeness. At first they dressed separately in the morning, wordlessly, not looking at one another, but lately she allowed him the pleasure of light conversing, on matters such as how long he thought it would be before summer came, or even asking Cellen what he thought of the maesters, and how well they teaching his peers.

Afterwards, he would not see his wife until supper, when he'd finished with his lessons and training, and she her Queenly duties. As he'd heard before, there were always guests invited to dine with the Queen from the town, or even an outlying village, accompanying them at supper, along with Sers Brienne and Podrick. The Queen engaged them in conversation, asking the same questions day after day, about their trades, whether they had enough food, how they fared during the last winter, and listened to their worries or concerns for their elder relations, or children, and such. It may seem rote to him, sitting through the same routine night after night, but all this was entirely new for each invitee to the Queen's table, and Cellen enjoyed seeing the wonderment in their eyes, that the Queen would care so much about their livelihoods.

She was more than polite to her husband during such meals as well, often directing the conversation in a way that brought him in, encouraging him to engage with the smallfolk the same way as she, and though many of them looked at him side-eyed upon meeting him at first, with their Queen's support they usually managed to act cordially to a Lannister by the time they departed. She'd even laughed at one of his jokes, about fat old Ron Reed, Cley Cerwyn's castellan, and Cellen allowed himself to believe her laughter may have been genuine.

After supper, Podrick would escort the smallfolk away, while Brienne would bring before Her Grace the neverending letters and scrolls his wife needed to attend to for what remained of the day. Sensing rather quickly through the process that no one had need of his presence at that point, Cellen would take that opportunity to make his way back to the Queen's chambers, his chambers, where he'd read through the next day's lessons while holding back his excitement for his wife's arrival, however awkward their relations were.

"My mother tells me the Queen's chambers are rather silent at night. I never reckoned you for a mute. Maybe 'Her Grace', but not you, Cellen."

Squinting his nose in annoyance, Cellen avoided the girl's eyes, this girl who'd once been the entirety of his dreams and desires.

"Lady Hornwood's daughter ought to know better than to gossip mindlessly about her Queen."

Alanna laughed. "My mother's a lady in waiting to the Queen. Gossiping about their Queen is all they do, really."

Mychal broke out in chuckles too, and Cellen felt discomfortingly outnumbered. Finishing the remainder of his pudding in one gulp, he took the bowl and rose to leave. Was that true, that all the Queen's ladies laughed at him, that they would mock his lack of prowess...or success, in his marriage?

"What," Mychal asked, baffled. "Were we too much?"

 _Yes_ , Cellen wanted to scream. _I'd rather it be the way before, when I was just your friend, rather than your Queen's husband, and an object of curiosity._

"I've got studies to attend to," was all he replied in return.

* * *

**Sansa - 319 AC**

"No word from King's Landing?"

"None," Tytos Blackwood answered. The massive man, a veteran who'd fought for her brother bravely during the War of Five Kings, had just arrived less than a fortnight after her wedding, so as to coordinate the defenses of the Upper Riverlands with that of the other kingdoms which answered to her. Both her uncle's kingdom as well as Sweetrobin's in the Vale still recognized Jon as their King, but in his absence, answered to the Queen in the North as their Queen Regent, part of the terms agreed to with Cersei so many years before. Similarly in the Stormlands, which also named Jon King, but Cersei their Queen Regent, because Sansa had conceded how impractical it would be for her to have any say in such faraway lands, within a few days' ride of King's Landing. She'd worried for Lord Gendry at first, and could only hope that Cersei had the good sense to fear her sister's wrath should anything happen to the former smith, however far away her fleets sailed.

"I wish I could've seen her face when she heard you'd taken her son for yourself."

There was that particular hostage of hers too, to tame the Queen on the Iron Throne. Fortunately for her new husband, and the realm as a whole, Cersei Lannister had exercised surprising restraint in her rule over, generously speaking, half the former seven kingdoms, now that her claim over them was firmly established. No massacres or purges, though Sansa figured that Daenerys had done enough of that for all three queens combined.

"I could ask Bran," the Queen in the North suggested.

"You should," Tytos replied with a wink, his ragged, hair still as dark as a raven's wings despite his age.

"Some things are best left to the imagination," Sansa mused, a smile exchanged with the old warrior atop the battlements of a sunny spring day, an expression which could only be conveyed from one of the most powerful warlords in the land to another, both of them secure in their power. "You'll be ready, if she makes any move from Harrenhal?"

"Your uncle has given me command of all the bannermen of the Three Forks in case of war."

"Good. I'm glad the last war has disillusioned him of the idea that there's any glory to be had in war."

"I assume your brother will alert us if the southern armies make any move?"

"He will," Sansa said, nodding. This was another reason she trusted Cersei would exercise restraint, once it'd been clearly conveyed to her the breadth and depth of Bran's powers during the last war.

There was another matter too, and Sansa wondered whether she ought to confer with old Tytos. She decided to wait, until it materialized, so as not to distract him from the more proximate threat.

* * *

A knock disturbed her bath. Her ladies in waiting always joked that they were the most useless handmaidens in the realm, their Queen always insisting upon complete solitude whenever she was to be disrobed, whether for the bath, or bed, or any other occasion. But the warm water was Sansa's sanctuary, moreso than most places in the castle, especially now that her own room could no longer be said to be entirely hers anymore. Here, she could immerse her body under the surface, close her eyes, and forget all the troubles of the world, all the needy lords and quarrelsome ladies she tangled with each and every day of her existence ruling three...well, two and a half, kingdoms.

"Who is it?"

"Lady Alanna, Your Grace."

The Queen opened her eyes, alerted. "Come in."

The spritely girl of four and ten entered the room cautiously, footsteps timid as a mouse's.

"Something I need to know about Cellen?"

"There is, Your Grace," the Hornwood girl replied bashfully, before hurriedly adding, "don't get the wrong impression please, he's done nothing wrong, Your Grace."

"What's the matter then," she asked, her patience strained at her, not because of the girl herself, but because of the interruption. "There's got to be a reason you've come to seek me tonight."

"I...," the girl stuttered her words, looking down bashfully at her feet. "Do you hate him, Your Grace," she finally decided to ask.

"Cellen? My husband? Of course not. Why would you ask this?"

Though in her heart, Sansa could surely guess. The Queen was no stranger as to how she'd kept her new husband at a distance since their marriage...since the day he was born the son of Cersei Lannister, really...but how could he expect any otherwise, that a Queen, a woman, who'd chosen to remain unmarried for her entire reign, would suddenly embrace in passionate love a stranger, a boy, more than half her age.

"He hasn't said anything cross about you at all," Alanna stressed, obviously keen to defend her friend, and Sansa regretted putting the poor girl in this situation, of having to betray her own friend, if need be, for the sake of her Queen. "He's completely loyal to you...and he adores you, he really does, I see it in his eyes...whenever he speaks of you, it's with awe, and deference...as he should speak of his Queen, of course."

"But?"

"But...," the girl's dark brown eyes lowered to the ground again. She was a beauty for sure, Sansa recognized, one who would be recognized as such north or south, and for the first time, Sansa wondered whether she'd had her own eyes on the young Lannister boy. If so, Alanna had kept well this secret to herself.

"I...I know it's not my business..."

"It's not," Sansa emphasized.

"But...Cellen...he's my friend. He's a good man, he has a good heart, he's never wished ill on anyone. Well...except maybe Ben Tully."

The Queen scoffed, allowing a mild smirk towards the frightened girl. "I don't blame him about that, Ben Tully's a bit of a cunt."

To both their relief, Alanna laughed first, before looking expectantly at her Queen, as if asking permission after the fact for finding the humour in her words. Sansa laughed too, to tell the girl that she liked her, that she was not cross at her for speaking honestly to her Queen.

"It's true, and he's at least old enough for me to not be insulting a child. I mean, who in all seven kingdoms actually likes Ben Tully, except my uncle and his wife?"

"I'd imagine Ben himself, but that's kind of the problem, isn't it?"

Sansa laughed lightly again, to give the girl permission to continue with what she was really here for.

"I've known Cellen most of my life, Your Grace. He's grown up in a land that despises him, his name, he's not someone who scares easy..."

"You think he's scared of me."

A pause, hesitation, before Alanna decided upon her answer, committing to it.

"He's terrified of you, Your Grace."

"Good."

Again, Sansa admired the girl's composure before her.

"The North needs their Queen to marry a Lannister, and the North needs all the Lannisters in all the realms terrified of its Stark Queen."

"I'm not ignorant of the politics, Your Grace. I know of how awful Cersei Lannister is, I know his father has wronged many in the realm, north or south. Yet, he is the son of a Queen, isn't he? However awful Cersei is, she's the Queen the North chose to recognize in the Iron Throne." As the girl continued talking, Sansa thought her voice gained in confidence. _She has balls,_ the Queen mused. Alanna continued. "And he's a fair lad, very handsome, so I hear most of the girls whispering..."

"Do you fancy him, Lady Alanna?"

Her question seemed to catch the girl off guard, but again she quickly regained her composure.

"He's my friend, Your Grace, I've known him since we were both children."

"You do fancy him then?"

The girl was clever, and Sansa recognized that she'd be a formidable lady once she was older...which was why Sansa had chosen her for this task in the first place.

"I think Cellen's someone who would be fancied by girls and ladies on either side of the Narrow Sea, even if he weren't the son of a Queen. And despite the fact his father's the Queen's brother." Approaching her from the doorway, little Alanna Hornwood dared stride to the edge of her bath, then collapsed onto her knees, her little elbows daring to intrude upon the boundaries of her Queen's sanctuary. "Your Grace, Cellen would've made a good husband, whether to a Queen, or Lady, or, I don't know...a seamstress in White Harbor. I understand, there's no greater honor than to be married to the Queen, but..."

"Yet you can't help but think he deserves better than me?"

The girl's cheeks twitched involuntarily, and here and now Sansa knew for sure that were Alanna not in love with the boy, she was young enough and foolish enough to at least believe herself to be.

"All he wants to do is serve you, Your Grace, to serve the North. I've known him all our lives...he's nothing like his mother, I'm sure of that. He cares nothing about power, or riches, or titles...Ser Brienne's as much of a mother to him as anyone in his life, Your Grace, all he wants to do is to serve the only lands he's known, the only Queen he's known, to make amends for all the wrong his family's done to all of us. Perhaps he could've made me happy, were I to have been his wife, in another life. I think I would've made him happy...but I'll never know."

"It's not about happiness," the Queen replied, sinking lower into her bathwater, so as to reveal as little of herself to the young lady as she could manage. "Yes he's young. Yes, he has a good heart, I understand all that. But girls far younger than you and Cellen have been made to marry for thousands of years, to old men much more horrible than I. It's not about love, what marriage is, among us highborn ladies...yet girls younger than he have done their duty, have suffered far more than Cellen of House Lannister has at my hands."

Averting her eyes, the poor girl seemed only now to come to the realization of her physical proximity to the Queen, and just how far she'd dared intrude. So she rose, and retreated, in quiet horror.

"Please forgive me, Your Grace, I did not mean..."

"Think nothing of it," the terror in Alanna's eyes bringing Sansa back to her senses, reminding her that it was not Cersei or Daenerys she strove to be, striking sheer terror into the hearts of all her subjects. "You came to me out of caring, and compassion, for your friend. I will not begrudge you of it, and I will take into consideration your counsel."

"Thank you, Your Grace."

Timid steps crept back towards the doorway. Hearing it shut gently, the Queen in the North closed her eyes and sank deeper into her bathwater.

* * *

He wasn't reading a book as she'd expected, when she returned to her chambers. Rather, holding up a wooden, sparring sword, Sansa watched as her husband worked his way through his stances, taking care of his footwork, the balance of his body. Did Brienne practice like this, when she was a little girl? Or Arya, when she'd learned from her Braavosi instructor, all the while Sansa remained a foolish girl too infatuated with the fair Prince Joffrey and his big ugly nose to truly understand the uglier ways of the world.

"Your Grace," he startled, dropping his practice sword in an instant. "My apologies, the hour is later than...normal, and I'd assumed you'd had some work come up."

"You may call me Sansa. Here. When it's just you and I."

She thought she saw a dim smile begin to grow upon his lips.

"Sansa," her husband said, as if he were testing the sound of the word upon his lips for the first time. Had he never called her by her name before, until now? Quickly, he began undoing the buttons to his shirt.

"Stop." Sansa didn't mean for the word to emerge from her throat as an order, yet there it was all the same. "You don't have to."

"Your Grace?" His eyes downcast, and Sansa was aware that he'd thought he disappointed her once more.

"It's not you. There's no more need." The Queen paused. They'd rarely talked like this, in the privacy of their private chambers, her body barely clad in nightgowns which felt flimsier than Lysian armor. "I'm with child now."

"You are?" For once, his face was undecipherable.

Sansa shook her head. "The maesters aren't sure yet. But I am."

"Oh."

"Are you disappointed?"

"Of course not," Cellen answered immediately. Yet, his eyes did not match his spoken word. "I...it's nothing, Your Grace."

 _Sansa_ , she wanted to correct him. "You want more from me?"

He'd been on his way back to his bed, shoulders sulking. Yet her words brought forth from his heart energy, and the youthful defiance Sansa would've expected of a boy his age. "I'm your husband," he began, a quick spurt of boldness before he started wilting before her very eyes. "I...I just want to please you, my wif...Your Grace."

"You realize you get far more enjoyment from our marital relations than I."

Her words had exactly the deflating effect she'd expected upon the boy. Looking down upon his feet, in a similar manner as the girl Alanna did minutes before, Sansa wondered whether the Queen had crossed a line.

"I'm sorry," she muttered. "I don't mean to be mean, Cellen, believe me, that's not my intention, even if it comes across as such."

"It doesn't matter," the young boy replied, shaking his head, still cast downwards upon the hard stone floor. "I know you didn't marry me out of any great feeling of fondness towards me, much less love. But..."

It seemed that Sansa would watch him as the last remaining vestiges of his courage fade as his chest sunk underneath his robes.

"I understand I've done my duty for the Queen," he spoke, after a long pause, his tone plain and flat. "I thank the gods for that."

"Do you want to serve your Queen?"

"I do," her young husband answered eagerly, before he'd dare look his eyes upwards back towards her. Their eyes met, for an impenetrable second, before his lowered, and Sansa realized that he was staring at her stomach now, where, underneath the thin gown, grew the youngest Stark, the first Stark to be conceived in over an entire generation.

"Come here."

He stepped forward obediently, and the Queen raised her left hand in the air, as she would for a subject.

"Rub my fingers."

Her husband took her hand, his fingers visibly more delicate than hers, but before obeying her orders to the letter, he kissed first her hand outstretched hand, his lips as soft and gentle as a maiden's. Then, leaning his head back, appraising her hand with his soft green eyes, he leaned forward, and brushed his lips against each one of her fingers, starting with her thumb. Sitting down on her bed, she watched her husband bend the knee and lower himself beside her, and begin kneading the tips of his fingers against her palm, the back of her hand, slowly making his way towards her knuckles.

His hands were less clumsy than she'd expected, and for a jealous second, as she laid herself against her bed, and closed her eyes, Sansa wondered whether he'd performed this act for any other girls before her, perhaps the pretty Hornwood girl. Perhaps more, than merely a massaging of a hand or two? Alanna had sworn nothing of the sort had ever occurred.

An involuntary groan escaped the lips of the Queen as her husband's fingers squeezed against an especially sensitive spot she did not know she had upon her middle finger.

"I'm sorry," Cellen gasped, thinking, as what appeared his habit now, that he'd done something wrong.

"No," Sansa replied, her eyes still closed, "that felt good. You can do the other hand now."

His lips kissed the hand he'd just finished with, then her right hand. It was a useless indulgence, but Sansa supposed she could allow her husband the illusion that such gestures pleased her. But his fingers did feel good as they massaged her between her knuckles, her palms, up to her wrists, and it entered her mind that this was a privilege she might as well take advantage of from her new husband, so long as he remained eager to please her.

Like in her bath, the Queen rested, the world and all its troubled closed away from her, her mind slipping away into nothingness except for the pleasant sensations, as his fingers worked their way up her wrist, and...

His fingers paused, and she knew too belated where they'd just landed...against the edge of a small scar running down the back of her lower arm, one of the many marks she still bore from her last husband, so many years afterwards. Opening her eyes in a panic, she met his, and saw uncertainty in the face of his boy, who'd probably never seen felt a real scar upon anyone in his entire life.

Rather than apologize, as she'd half expected, Cellen's first thought was to lean his lips in and kiss reverently the ugly mark upon her arm.

"The Queen does not need to be ashamed of anything, Your Grace."

"You may stop, thank you."

Her husband withdrew, shoulders slumping as Cellen obediently walked back to his own side of the room.

"Wait," the Queen ordered, and Cellen turned back expectantly. "You can disrobe."

"Your Grace," the boy answered, confused, "I thought...you're with child now."

"Do you not want to?" Gods, was she taunting him?

"I..."

Without another word, he began taking his clothes off. He was becoming quicker and quicker with disrobing himself before her, Sansa thought. Did this mean he was becoming less intimidated by her?

Finished, Cersei Lannister's son laid obediently upon his back atop her bed, his body clearly ready and eager for what was to come. She took him in, an almost familiar sensation now, and not the worst one, Sansa could admit to herself, if only herself. Her hands moved to hold him down, keep him down, so that he could not take her, control her...but at the last minute, the Queen changed her mind, and instead took both his hands in hers, those hands that had given her enjoyment minutes before, and for the first time her eyes met his in the middle of the act.

Hands clasped between husband and wife, his eyes betraying his every thought, Sansa saw him building up the courage to speak before he did so.

"Your Grace, can I...may I...share the bed with you, for the night...after..."

"Sansa," she reminded him again, the Queen hearing the slight unsteadiness in her own voice as she spoke. "Your wife's name is Sansa. She asks that you call her by her name."

"Sansa," he repeated again, obediently, even happily. She saw the greed in his eyes, the boy's attention now fixated upon the breasts underneath her nightgown. Having dressed for the night not expecting any relations with her husband, she'd worn a lighter and sheerer gown than she normally did for the occasion, and now regretted it.

He wants to dare himself to ask for more, Sansa realized, he wanted her, all of her, as any man would want all of his wife. It was not Cellen's fault that he'd been forced into the one marriage where he'd never be able to get what he wanted. But should she give him something, at the very least? Sansa remembered Alanna's words, that he could have made a fine husband to anyone else in the North, made many a fine lady happy...and be eagerly pleased by any other wife he could have taken, besides her.

 _He deserves nothing_ , Sansa reminded herself. _No more than any young girl sent off by her family to marry some disgusting old man she does not want or covet._

Yet, why did she need to compare herself to ugly old men?

Lifting his hands up, she placed them carefully upon the back of her hips, against her lower back. Instantly, she felt his grip tighten upon her body, yet he still took care to remain gentle, to please rather than take, rubbing his fingers slowly against her clothed skin as he did with her hands. Slowing, feeling, even enjoying the touch of his hands, listening to her own body, rather than rocking her hips monotonously up and down as she normally did while waiting rather impatiently for him to finish, she allowed herself to sit still upon him at first, feeling the touch of her thighs against the skin of his legs underneath her nightgown as she began to thrust deeper against him.

 _This is rather good,_ she thought, just when it all became too much for her husband, his body convulsing below hers, out of pleasure, rather than duty, though she'd figured it'd always been both for him since their first time.

Rising wordlessly to wash herself in the privy afterwards, the Queen finally decided.

"You may stay in my bed, if you wish."


End file.
